Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana 2025 Stage 2

February 6, 2025 The first road stage of the race may be the hardest at 166KM with 3,300M of climbing including the Coll de Rates, Benimantell, and Benifato. The last 20 kilometers are almost all uphill starting with the penultimate climb of Benimantell is 5.5KM long at 7%. A short descent off of Benimantell leads right into the difficult Benifato climb which is 4.4KM at over 9% to the finish. Five riders got out to make the break of the day including Vicente Rojas of VF Group-Bardiani CSF - Faizanè, Samuele Zoccarato of Polti-VisitMalta, Quentin Bezza of Wagner-Bazin WB, Sinuhé Fernández of Burgos Burpellet BH, and Matyáš Kopecký of Novo Nordisk but only Fernández and Kopecký remained as they climbed the Coll de Rates with 43KM to go. They pair only had 70 seconds on the bunch as they crested the Coll de Rates with 41KM to go. The road continued to roll until the true descent started. UAE-XRG took control but the other GC teams were vigilant and sticking close to the front to avoid any splits or incidents on the downhill. Fernández and Kopecký were caught with 24.5KM to go but it wasn't long before more moves went off the front. At just over 17KM to go, Tobias Foss of Ineos got clear which spurred on chasers to get in on the action. Foss was still ahead solo at 20 seconds 3KM later as UAE-XRG swung off the front and stopped pulling. Half of the UAE-XRG team took a turn attacking but none of them could get away. Foss went over the top of Benimantell at 9.7KM to go with just a handful of seconds to the bunch which was down to only 20 riders due to the constant attacking. Pello Bilbao of Bahrain Victorious and Iván Romeo of Movistar got away on the descent and joined Foss with 6.5KM to go. A stalemate behind allowed the gap to grow to almost 40 seconds with 4.5KM to go but the steepest ramps were waiting for the three leaders in the last 3KM. Foss was dropped from the front at 3KM and Romeo had to pull the pin a kilometer later as Bilbao continued to ramp the pace up at the front. João Almeida of UAE-XRG started pulling and split the remnants of the group into twos and threes. Only Santiago Buitrago of Bahrain Victorious and Jefferson Cepeda of Movistar could hold the wheel. Buitrago attacked Almeida and bridged to Bilbao with just 500M to go and immediately gapped his teammate. Buitrago hauled himself up the concrete goat path and crossed the line to secure his first victory of the season. Bilbao had enough in the tank to hold on for second at 9 seconds with Almeida coming in third at 13 seconds. Mathias Vacek of Lidl-Trek came across the line exhausted but he did enough to retain his leaders jersey by 2 seconds to Almeida and 5 seconds to Buitrago.